Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino

(April 6 or March 28, 1483 April 6, 1520)

Italian Painter and architect of Renaissance origin Born in Central Italian city of Urbino in the Marche region Son of Giovanni Santi, a court painter to the Duke Workshops by his father sowed the seeds of his future

His early self portrait (probable) displayed his precious talent.

According to Giorgio Vasari, his father placed him in the

workshop of the Umbrian master Pietro Perugino as an

apprentice, but it is controversial.

An alternative theory is that he received at least some training

from Timoteo Viti, who acted as court painter in Urbino from

1495

Most modern historians agree that Raphael at least worked as an

assistant to Perugino from around 1500; the influence of

Perugino on Raphael's early work is very clear

His first documented work was Baronci altarpiece for the church of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino

Angel ( fragment of Baronci Alterpiece)

His first documented work was Baronci ltarpiece for the church of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino In the centre of the painting Nicholas of Tolentino stood in an archway, with the devil at his feet. Next to him were three angels. Above him God the Father was Placed with a crown in his hand, and surrounded by the heads of angels. On his left the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Augustine were Painted.
Angel ( fragment of Baronci Alterpiece)

During a heavy earthquake in1789,the painting was damaged so severely that it was decided to saw it into pieces and display only the undamaged parts. In the same year, the fragments were acquired by Pope Pius VI for the collections of the Vatican, where they remained until 1849.

Angel ( fragment of Baronci Alterpiece)

The Mond Crucifixion (1501)

it was originally an altarpiece in the church of San Domenico in Citt di Castello. The painting shows Jesus on the cross, who is

looking peaceful even though he is dying.

There are two angels catching his blood in chalices. On Jesus' left kneels Mary Magdalene, with John the Evangelist standing behind her. On his right Mary (mother of Jesus) stands, and St. Jerome, to whom the altar was dedicated, is kneeling.

The Marriage of the Virgin (1504) also known as Lo Sposalizio, is an oil

painting for a Franciscan church in

Citt di Castello, the painting depicts a marriage ceremony between Mary and Joseph. It changed hands several

times before settling in 1806 at the

Pinacoteca di Brera.

Oddi Altar (1502 - 1504)

The crowning of the Virgin simply shows

somewhat of a split screen:

The coronation (the upper section) shows the

virgin being crowned by Jesus, while angels are

playing music;

The girdle to Saint Thomas (the lower section) shows the apostles gathered around the empty tomb of Mary whose body raised to heaven. St

Thomas holds in his hands the girdle Mary

dropped down to him as a testament to her assumption.

Raphael led a "nomadic" life, working in various centres in Northern

Italy, but spent a good deal of time in Florence, perhaps from about
1504.

As earlier with Perugino and others, Raphael was able to assimilate the influence of Florentine art, whilst keeping his own developing style.

He also perfects his own version of Leonardo's sfumato modelling, to give subtlety to his painting of flesh, and develops the interplay of glances between his groups, which are much less enigmatic than those of Leonardo. But he keeps the soft clear light of Perugino in his paintings.

The Deposition (Deposizione Borghese)

or The Entombment (1507) Looking at it formally, the scene depicted is actually neither the Deposition nor the Entombment, but located somewhere in-between. We can determine this through the background: on the right is Mount Calvary, the location of the Crucifixion and Deposition, and on the left is the cave where the Entombment will take place. And so two men, lacking halos, use a piece of linen to carry the dead Christ and it seems as if all the participants in the bearing of the body are in suspended animation

Madonna with the Christ Child and Saint John the Baptist or Madonna del prato (Madonna of the Meadow) or Madonna del Belvedere (1506) The three figures in a calm green meadow are linked by looks and touching hands. The Virgin Mary is shown in a contrapposto pose, wearing a gold-bordered blue mantle set against a red dress and with her right leg lying along a diagonal. The blue symbolises the church and the red Christ's death, with the Madonna the uniting of Mother Church with Christ's sacrifice. With her eyes fixed on Christ, her head is turned to the left and slightly inclined, and in her hands she holds up Christ, as he leans forward unsteadily to touch the miniature cross held by John. The poppy refers to Christ's passion, death and resurrection.

By the end of 1508, he had moved to Rome, where he lived for the rest of his life. Raphael was immediately commissioned by Julius to fresco what was intended to become the Pope's private library at the Vatican Palace. He was greatly inspired by Da-Vinci and Michealangelo. He used their form of art (sfumato etc.) and used them in his own work. He was even blamed by michealangelo for plagiarism.

Stanza della segnatura

It was the first to be decorated by Raphael's frescoes.

It was the study housing the library of Julius II, in which the Signatura of grace tribunal was originally located. The artist's concept brings into harmony the

spirits of Antiquity and Christianity and reflects the

contents of the pope's library with themes of theology, philosophy, jurisprudence, and the poetic arts, represented in tondi above the lunettes of the

walls. The theme of this room is worldly and spiritual

wisdom and the harmony which Renaissance humanists perceived between Christian teaching and Greek philosophy.

Causarum Cognitio or School of Athens The Fresco of Raphael's School of Athens is a masterpiece of Art. However we do not know all details of the persons who are depicted. Giorgio Vasari and others have suggested nearly all Greek philosophers and ancient scientists can be found here. Unfortunately Raphael did not leave any personal notes on this work but some of the persons can be identified. The work shows that Raphael was an educated person, had some knowledge of Greek philosophy and science. We can consider The School of Athens as a visualization of knowledge.

Raphael Cartoons The Raphael Cartoons are seven large cartoons for tapestries, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, painted by the High Renaissance painter Raphael in 1515-16 and showing scenes from the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles. They are the only surviving members of a set of ten cartoons commissioned by Pope Leo X for tapestries for the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Palace.

Sistine Madonna orThe Madonna di San Sisto,

(15131514)
It was the last of the painter's Madonna's and the last painting he completed with his own hands. Relocated to Dresden from 1754, the well-known painting has

been particularly influential in Germany. After World

War II, it was relocated to Moscow for a decade before it was returned to Germany. There, it resides as one of the central pieces in the Gemldegalerie

Alte Meister. The painting has been highly praised by

many notable critics, and Giorgio Vasari called it a "a truly rare and extraordinary work"

After Bramante's death in 1514, he was named architect of the new St Peter's. He designed several other buildings, and for a short time was the most important architect in Rome, working for a small circle around the Papacy. Julius had made changes to the street plan of Rome, creating several new thoroughfares, and he wanted them filled with splendid palaces. Palazzo Aquila

He designed many buildings some being the

Palazzo Aquila, Chigi Chapel, Villa Madama etc. Chigi Chapel

Raphael was one of the finest draftsmen in the history of Western art, and used drawings extensively to plan his compositions. According to a near-contemporary, when beginning to plan a composition, he would lay out a large number of stock drawings of his on the floor, and begin to draw "rapidly", borrowing figures from here and there. When a final composition was achieved, scaled-up fullsize cartoons were often made, which were then pricked with a pin and "pounced" with a bag of soot to leave dotted lines on the surface as a guide. He also made unusually extensive use, on both paper and plaster, of a "blind stylus", scratching lines which leave only an indentation, but no mark..
Study for soldiers in this Resurrection of Christ, ca 1500.

Raphael made no prints himself, but entered into a collaboration with Marcantonio Raimondi to produce engravings to Raphael's designs, which created many

of the most famous Italian prints of the century, and

was important in the rise of the reproductive print. The most famous original prints to result from the collaboration were Lucretia, the Judgement of Paris

and The Massacre of the Innocents (of which two

virtually identical versions were engraved). Among prints of the paintings The Parnassus (with considerable differences) and Galatea were also

especially well-known.

Raphael was highly admired by his contemporaries, although his influence on artistic
style in his own century was less than that of Michelangelo. Mannerism, beginning at the time of his death, and later the Baroque, took art "in a direction totally opposed" to Raphael's qualities, "with Raphael's death, classic art - the High Renaissance subsided", as Walter Friedlnder put it. He was soon seen as the ideal model by those disliking the excesses of Mannerism. The opinion was generally held in the middle of the sixteenth century that Raphael was the ideal balanced painter, universal in his talent, satisfying all the absolute standards, and obeying all the rules which were supposed to govern the arts, whereas Michelangelo was the eccentric genius, more brilliant than any other artists in his particular field, the drawing of the male nude, but unbalanced and lacking in certain qualities, such as grace and restraint, essential to

the great artist.